Artist and rapper DarcyOwla is someone with a clear sense of original identity and purpose in modern music. The EP Destruction is uniquely distinct, both in its atmospheric, industrial production, and the varied flow and vulnerability of the voice. It’s a hazy mix, with cinematic nuance subtly adding dynamic throughout, and the lo-fi set-up and trap-variant rhythms all meet well with these often piercingly dark lyrical reflections.
Darkness is the opener, an intriguing introduction to Destruction and indeed to the DarcyOwla voice in both lyric and tone. It’s almost like a grunge-hip-hop crossover, a softly dissonant vocal mix, echoes of ideas and fragments of optimism woven into the otherwise intense Darkness and despair of the writing.
After this, a modest guitar lays down more of a hopeful, melodic vibe, with a touch more clarity to the mix, before we enter a suddenly chaotic fusion of seemingly arbitrary but artistic keys and distorted guitar hits. Chaos is crucial here, but it’s rhythmic, purposeful, and the DarcyOwla voice is unmistakable now. The genre has evolved to something like post-punk, avant-garde alternative, and the track October of 8th feels, in many ways, like a theatrical performative explosion of emotion, memory, and regret.
We proceed then into the deeply introspective and scornful Run Over Bitch. There’s an adlib quality to the style, almost as if DarcyOwla is standing at the keyboard, playing these notes and sounds in unison with the rhythmic outpouring of voice and lyrics. It’s freestyle, perhaps the audio version of surrealist art – open to interpretation, but also, a direct recording or imprint of a sincere moment of self-reflection and soulful conviction.
DarcyOwla’s style is minimalist, on the whole – heavy and delicate intermittently, but always spacious, always with the feeling of being a solo artist project. The EP’s closing track Nuclear exemplifies these qualities, a fuzzy burst of effects and notes, lashings of space and industrial darkness, and a vocal both fragmented and impassioned; desperate and devoted to the rising anticipation and intensity of the composition. The title Nuclear feels perfectly in tune with the growing devastation and fear of the music, and the lyrics and vocal longing build further upon that artistic core.
Undoubtedly a creative driving a sincere and fearless route through modern music. DarcyOwla encapsulates the role of the artist – to create stories, images, to present feelings in a new way, and to make you feel something equally unorthodox and fascinating in the process.
Find DarcyOwla on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.
